State officials are planning to open Alico Arena at Florida Gulf Coast University as a public shelter at about 10 a.m today, said Susan Evans, a university spokeswoman.

FGCU was planning to shelter students who have remained in university housing since the school closed this week as a result of Hurricane Irma at Alico. FGCU has decided to shelter the students at Eagle Hall, an on-campus student living facility at FGCU's South Village community.

About 250 students and FGCU staff will be staying at Eagle Hall. The students could have still stayed at Alico, but the university opted to use Eagle Hall as a shelter for the students after the decision was made to open Alico as a public shelter, Evans said.

"There are a couple of large meeting rooms out there," said Evans, who is the university's chief of staff. "That's our most recently built building on campus, so we just felt like that would kind of be a better plan for them."

Evans said Alico can comfortably shelter about 1,600 people. She said she thinks the number of people seeking shelter from Irma at Alico will "probably come close to about doubling just because there is such danger this time, and people in these evacuations zones they just really need to get out."